The bloody invasion made the Manchu rulers of the Qing court in Beijing realize that they had to bring Tibet under their control rather than continue to treat it as a vassal state.

The turning point of Tibet's history came in 1949, when the People's Liberation Army of the PRC first crossed into Tibet.

On October 7, 1950, some 40,000 battled-hardened Chinese
P.L.A. troops crossed the upper Yangzte River into eastern Tibet. A
poorly-armed force of 4,000 Tibetans was quickly overrun. A Tibetan who
recalled hearing about the advance on the radio, later told the
Independent, "The announcement was not a complete shock: we had heard
reports that the poor people of China had risen up in revolution, and
all the rumors that these Communists would come to Tibet. But still
there was panic."

Tibet may have been poor and
isolated when the People's Liberation Army began its invasion in 1950,
but it was also a land whose people considered themselves essentially
independent.At the time Communist forces marched into Tibet, the former
empire was ill- prepared to defend itself. It had a poorly trained army,
no paved roads, and no more than a few speakers of any Western
language. Had the country modernized earlier instead of shunning
reforms, the Dalai Lama later wrote, "I am quite certain that Tibet's
situation today would be very different."

Fleeing his country: the Dalai Lama is interviewed as he arrives in India in 1959.

As the P.L.A, advanced on the eastern Tibetan town of Chamdo. Buddhist
monks prayed hard but there efforts didn't help. The Chinese easily took
Chamdo and captured more than half of Tibet's 10,000-man army. In
response to crisis, the Tibetan government enthroned the 15-year-old,
14th Dalai Lama. There was jubilation and dancing in streets but all
this, and appeals by the United Nations, had little effect on the
Chinese advance

The Dalai Lama tried multiple times to come to an understanding with China, but being the leader in peaceful protests aginst The People's Republic of China wasn't an easy task.Later in 1959, the Dalai Lama spoke with chairman Mao Zedong about Tibetan freedom and was denied, but as resilient as the Tibetans were they had a plan. They formed a resistance that again failed majorly. When the Chinese soldiers retaliated against the resistance they killed more than 87,000 people, and in fear for his life, the Dalai Lama was forced to flee, and was protected by a wall of Tibetan citizens blocking the path between the soldiers and the fleeing Dalai Lama. The citizens were afraid that the soldiers might try to capture him so they stood their ground. He fled to India where he continued making plans to gain Tibetan freedom and peace.

Tibet's status following the expulsion of Manchu troops is not subject to serious dispute. What ever ties existed between the Dalai Lama and the Manchu emperors of the Qing Dynasty were extinguished with the fall of that empire and dynasty. From 1911 to 1950, Tibet successfully avoided undue foreign influence and behaved, in every respect, as a fully independent state.